Parenting Secrets: How to catch your child in a lie!

Two nights before Christmas I came home from work. As I walked in the door Chad walked out to run some errands.

Carter: "Mommy, can I leave the table now."

Me: "What did Daddy tell you?"

Carter: "He said eat 4 more bites."

Me: "Well, did you?"

(delayed response)

Carter: "Uh huh."

Me: "Carter, are you sure?"

Carter: "Uh huh."

Me: "Alright, if you ate all 4 bites and you are telling me the truth then you can leave the table."

Carter: "Yep, I did." (As he hops off the chair.)

Me: "Ok, Carter but Jesus was watching you and he knows if you ate four bites."

Carter: "Uh huh. I did." (He starts walking away.)

Me: "And Santa Claus was watching you."

He freezes in his walk, quickly turns around, and walks back to his seat stating:

"Maybe, I should eat a few more bites."

Santa Clause vs. Jesus
Immediate gratification vs. delayed gratification.

I think it's safe to conclude a 3 year old DOES NOT understand the latter.

A better Mother than me.

The other day we were driving to Target. (Me and the 3 kids.) Out of the blue...

Carter asked: "Mom, how we all gonna get dead?"

Me: (shocked by his question) "How are we all going to die?"

Carter: "Yea."

Me: "Well, we don't know how we are going to die. But hopefully we all just die of really old age."

Alexis: (Quick to chime in as usual.) "Actually,
Carter...we die when we are ready to go live with Heavenly Father again."

Carter: "Oh." (Realizing that was a much better answer than his own Mom gave.)

Alexis: "And you see your skin?"

Carter: "Yea."

Alexis: "That is your physical body and it doesn't go with us."

I seriously just got out-done in the mothering department by my 6 year old daughter. My jaw might have dropped to the floor in shock. Shocked about the whole conversation. When did she learn all that. We haven't had a FHE about that recently. I didn't even know she understood the term "physical body" let alone when we will die.

Not sure why I'm their Mother...maybe it's for my sake to learn from them. Either way, I'm still grateful to have them a part of my life.

Owen

Isn't he the cutest boy? We think so.

On the dock at the river.
December 29th, 2009

We believe in Christ.

This morning Alexis volunteered herself to be in charge of Family Home Evening.

First, she passed out papers that she had made for us. All of them where personalized with our names and our theme she picked for the night.

Then she gave us pre-folded papers and told us we needed to fill in each square with something we believe about Christ. I was quite impressed with what she wrote she believed in her squares.
Then we all had to draw a picture of Christ. She even made us all color yellow around him because he is BRIGHT!

That's when Chad said: "Hey Alexis...mine looks just like yours."

And then Carter looked up and Chad said: "And yours looks like ours too Carter...in a sort of "Nightmare before Christmas" way."
I started busting up so hard. The kids kept asking why I was laughing and I couldn't stop.

Another successful FHE prepared solely by Alexis. Once again...we will do this more often.

My parents got their mission call.

So it's not what you'd think.

In fact it was the LAST place we could see them being sent. (Considering we knew it wasn't somewhere like South Africa since they'd be taking my handicapped sister with them.)

Get ready for the anti-climatic response of: "REALLY!"

My parents will serve as Mission Presidents over the...

Salt Lake City South Mission


HUH? I know. But it is so perfect!

My mom was super worried her parents wouldn't make it through the 3 years while they were gone. Now she is closer to them than she is living here in California. My Mom get's to live just miles from her sister and my Dad just miles from his brother...whose wife just so happens to be Melanie's all time favorite person in the world. If you know Melanie I guarantee you've heard of Aunt Laurel. And to top that off...they are smack dab in the middle of all of us kids now. A central location we can all visit.

Plus, it doesn't hurt all the ski resorts are in their mission. There mission extends from South Salt Lake down to the point of the mountain. All of South Jordan to past Park City. I'm excited because we will actually get to see them more than I ever thought we could.

Oh...and they will live just up the street from Boyd K. Packer.

"Are you kidding me?"

...was taken to a whole new level this week.

Alexis was playing in our patio when her friend Hattie came running over to her.

Hattie: "Alexis, look! I lost a tooth!"

Alexis: "No way."

Hattie: "I did. Look! There's a hole!"

Alexis: "No way. You're kidding me. You like totally lying to me! Seriously, you're sooo lying to me." (emphasis added with hands on hips)

I love spying on her. She makes me laugh.

What can I eat?

First, I cut this out:

When Owen was 5 days old I had figured out his sensitivity to me eating chocolate. I couldn't deny the difference in him once I cut it out of my diet.

At 2 months old he would wake up after sleeping 1 hour burping and crying like something was bothering him. We put him on reflux medicine and it seemed to help for a little while. But now after being on reflux medicine for a month and sleeping on an incline he is now only napping 30-45 minutes at a time. And I can't get him to go back to sleep for the life of me. Plus, his poo smells horrible. Like sulfur. It's been getting worse and it's just not normal when I am strictly breast feeding him.

I went into the after hours clinic on Friday wondering if he had an ear infection. Do you know what my $70 got me?

"Oh, he's cute. He look happy. I think he just like to you. That why he waking up."

Really! Is that why he's burping and crying? Don't you think he'd fall back asleep in my arms if "he just like me."

I came home frustrated to say the least. So I started researching some things and I've come to the conclusion that I think my milk doesn't sit well with him. So in an effort to take matters into my own hands...I quit eating all dairy products yesterday.

I'm already miserable. I seriously feel like I can't eat anything. Chad went out and bought me soy milk this morning. I took one bite and dumped the bowl of cereal out and opted to eat nothing for breakfast.

I finally got a chance to talk to his real pediatrician today and she completely agrees with me. She said she's had the complaint of babies poo smelling like sulfur before...and those mom's cut out dairy and it got better. So I'm hoping this takes care of it. If it doesn't work then we just have to move on and cut out other food...like wheat.